| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: unreal difficulties of ancient philosophy. We cannot understand the
attitude of mind which could imagine that falsehood had no existence, if
reality was denied to Not-being: How could such a question arise at all,
much less become of serious importance? The answer to this, and to nearly
all other difficulties of early Greek philosophy, is to be sought for in
the history of ideas, and the answer is only unsatisfactory because our
knowledge is defective. In the passage from the world of sense and
imagination and common language to that of opinion and reflection the human
mind was exposed to many dangers, and often
'Found no end in wandering mazes lost.'
On the other hand, the discovery of abstractions was the great source of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: Foster, formerly British Minister to the United States. He could
describe OUR COURT, as he called it, in the time of Madison and
Monroe.
January 1, 1848
This evening, in addition to my usual morning letter from your
father, I have another; a new postal arrangement beginning to-day
with the New Year. He gives me a most interesting conversation he
has just been having with Baron von Humboldt, who is now in Paris.
He says he poured out a delicious stream of remarks, anecdotes,
narratives, opinion. He feels great interest in our Mexican
affairs, as he has been much there, and is a Mexican by adoption.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Hall of Chiefs E-Thas, the major-domo, received her. The Hall was
empty except for its ranks of dead chieftains upon their dead
mounts. Through this long chamber E-Thas escorted her to the
throne room which also was empty, the marriage ceremony in
Manator differing from that of other countries of Barsoom. Here
the bride would await the groom at the foot of the steps leading
to the throne. The guests followed her in and took their places,
leaving the central aisle from The Hall of Chiefs to the throne
clear, for up this O-Tar would approach his bride alone after a
short solitary communion with the dead behind closed doors in The
Hall of Chiefs. It was the custom.
The Chessmen of Mars |
